


penance

by iimpavid, voidteatime



Series: unfinished duet [11]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Communication, Dom/sub, Domme Juno Steel is the Forbidden Truth, Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, M/M, Other, Polyamory, Shibari
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 15:15:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21448297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iimpavid/pseuds/iimpavid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidteatime/pseuds/voidteatime
Summary: A normal Friday night at their little house on the sea might involve the creative application of plura arils and teeth but things are a little different this week. Juno's in town and that changes everything.
Relationships: Juno Steel/Original Character(s), Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel/Original Character, Peter Nureyev/Original Character(s)
Series: unfinished duet [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564903
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

A normal Friday night at their little house on the sea might involve the creative application of plura arils and teeth-- just the right level of controlled exposure to life-threatening neurotoxins to be fun, and sweet, and maybe a little bloody-- but things are a little different this week. 

Juno's in town and that changes everything.

Not in the way the lady used to change everything when he came to call on Hieron; when Peter would vanish entirely leaving only a conspicuous silence and his bag by the door. 

No, they're past that. 

The duffel bag sits empty in the top of the coat closet. Peter and Juno play poker. Get drunk to shout at the sky whales from the roof of the house and stay up until dawn talking. Trade sleight-of-hand techniques and safecracking tips over dinner. Bicker in the grocery store about types of jam if Hieron makes the mistake of sending them out together. (It’s hopeless. Even if they send them out for different things they'll make all the stops together and pick at each other the whole time). And they're both altogether happy to have Hieron sandwiched between them watching movies or tucked in bed at night. Any envy underlying it all has mellowed to an amicable, affectionate one-upmanship -- whether it comes to keeping the house or their freelance thieving or seeing if either of them can sway their lover's adamantly balanced eye. 

(An impossible task; Hieron loves their lady and their angel equally in the most multivariate ways.) 

Juno's in town and it changes everything because they've made plans. All three of them.

* * *

Peter's nervous, still, and it shows in the way he's looking to Hieron like an anchor. It's a stupid thing to do. He obviously can't see without his glasses — nothing in detail, anyway, maybe just the soft golden smudge of Hieron reclined on the sofa and watching as Juno ties him up. Interrogates him. Takes him apart.

Or as Juno tries to, at any rate. 

" _ Hey _ !" Juno snaps his fingers in Peter's face, an inch from his nose and whip-crack loud. " _ Pay attention _ ." 

Because he hasn't been, or he’d’ve seen Juno telegraphing the movement, Peter startles violently.

Overbalances and falls over.

Juno could stop him, could reach out and snag his fingers in the woven diamonds of black rope over his chest-- that's the point of the harness. It'd been equal parts warm-up and assurance that later, if the mood struck, he could drag Peter around as needed. He  _ could  _ help. 

But he's not feeling that generous. 

It can't feel nice, the way Peter's tried to catch himself. Unable to find a good balancing point other than his shoulder-- there's not much he can do with his legs frogtied, ankles to thighs, and his hands bound in prayer-position behind his back. He's managed to get himself stuck. 

Juno  _ laughs _ at him. 

A low chuckle that drifts through the room while he walks away, boots heavy on the hardwood floor. He stops, behind Peter and just out of reach, to watch. He can't leave Nureyev this way for long, sure, but he knows from experience a little badly-placed weight doesn't warrant the wide-eyed, almost frantic way he's working to get his head turned. Even his fingers and toes are twitching -- like that's going to help him counterbalance at all. 

From the sofa, Hieron muffles a delicate laugh of their own. They have a hand pressed to their mouth. Their eyes are dancing. Not that Peter could catch them smiling anyway from this angle but better safe than sorry.

Juno’s about to go back over and yank Peter upright again, to his knees where he's supposed to be for this (because they'd agreed to a gameplan and they all know Nureyev needs that sort of thing when he's nervous, which is, apparently,  _ always _ )-- when gravity wins out. 

Peter topples onto his back, red-faced and panting. He doesn't try to ease the weight on his hands and shoulders. He turns his head to the side to see where it was that Juno had gone and when he sees them his expression is one of relief. 

He tries for a suave smile despite the bad angle and says, "I was distracted. I'm sorry, Juno." 

Juno exchanges a brief glance with Hieron. They’re doing their best to look as unimpressed as he is. 

"You’re not sorry.” Without much effort (it's all leverage and good ropework, never mind how a life of crime and not-drinking-himself-to-sleep have been so very good for his upper body strength) Juno drags Peter up by the ropes wrapping him so he can ease him flat onto his stomach. “But you will be.”

* * *

Seen from eye level with the floor Juno's right boot is immaculate. It should be. Peter took his time polishing both Juno’s boots-- less than an hour ago. He can still smell the polish, chemical and sharp, and the loamy wax he'd taken to the seams, and he tries to focus on that and not the treads of Juno's left boot pressing steadily between his shoulder blades. If he unfolds his fingers from where he's laced them together he could touch Juno’s heel. Inexplicably, he’s convinced that doing so would be a bad idea.

(It’s perfectly explicable. Juno had  _ laughed _ at him. He'd been unable to keep from moving them, feeling the strangeness of his own hands and fingers from such a new angle and Juno had laughed and said, _ It's so hard for you to stay still, isn't it? _ )

"You know, Hieron told me you were  _ good _ ... and I don't think they were lying, but Nureyev," Juno huffs, surprised at how he's still managing, somehow to be disappointed, "But I do think you've set the bar  _ real low  _ for them, haven't you?" 

Peter frowns. "No, I--" 

"I'm sorry," even though he clearly isn't, "What'd you just say to me? Did you just tell me I'm  _ wrong _ ?" 

"No!  _ No _ , but I--" 

"There, you're doing it again! Nureyev, work with me here, I'm trying to help you." 

Juno sounds perplexed. 

Juno sounds amused. 

Juno sounds like he's  _ fucking with him _ .

Peter breathes to center himself. To remind himself that he’s not supposed to win. 

Breathing deep forces the skin of his back harder into Juno's boot and the floor. The floor is so hard underneath his chest-- nevermind the rope latticed across his torso, he can feel the places where the wood boards fit together digging into him.

Juno throws him a bone. "Let's start over, how's that sound?" 

Peter nods. He's been sweating and his cheek sticks and drags across the floor. 

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that." 

"Yes, let's,” he swallows, and because Juno seems hellbent on making him talk and he wants more than anything to get this right, he makes it into a full sentence, “Let's start over. Please."

"Alright." 

Juno grinds his foot a little before he takes it off Peter's back and it burns and it's  _ good _ . Because Juno sounds pleased. He's back on the right track.

"We're gonna start over: I don't get a lotta time off," Juno tells him even though it's not quite true, "and when I do, who do I come all the way out here to see?" 

"Hieron." 

"I came to see Hieron." 

Peter stares at Juno's boots. 

" _ And _ ?"

Peter turns over his answer for any embellishment and comes up blank.

Juno tries again, "I came all the way to whatever-the-hell backwater planet this is--"

"Nauri," Hieron supplies, unhelpfully, from where they’re sprawled in their translucent robe— the gold one that clings like a second skin. It’s Juno’s favorite. He loves it, even more, when it’s on the floor. "We get regular imports; we're hardly a backwater." 

" _ I'm having a conversation with Nureyev _ ," Juno growls because it's now become his job to manage the both of them— some ladies have all the luck. 

Peter made the mistake of relaxing in those seconds of levity. He can feel Juno's attention drop over him again and he doesn't have the freedom to crawl away from it. 

" _ Who else _ am I here to see?"

He doesn't answer. 

"C'mon, you're supposed to be smart." 

"It's rude to keep a lady waiting," Hieron nudges.

But Juno's lost his patience already and he doesn't drop his foot in the middle of Peter's back this time. With gentle control— that Peter can't possibly appreciate, wrapped up in whatever it is that's racing through his head-- Juno steps on the side of Peter's face. More a touch, really, feather-light. His foot isn’t even touching the sole inside the boot. 

But it does the job. Gets Peter’s attention lightning-quick and earns Juno a full-body jerk. Peter’s reflexive, "I'm sorry!" is just the icing on the cake 

"I didn't  _ ask  _ you to be  _ sorry _ ,” Juno tells him slowly because the devil is in the details and Peter is missing every single one of them, “I asked you who I came here to see. Here, I'll make it easy for you: whose face am I grinding into the floor right now?" 

"Mine! Me!  _ Me _ , it's me, you came here to see Hieron and— and to see me!" 

Juno takes his boot off Peter's face. "Good," he says, "Very good." 

And-- because Peter sounds like he might cry and that wasn't  _ supposed  _ to be on the table-- he kneels down, licks his thumb, and wipes an imaginary smudge off Peter's cheekbone, rubs the skin a little longer than absolutely necessary. It’s a stubborn imaginary smudge. 

(His boots, he knows, are perfectly clean. Peter had insisted on making sure of it. Which is, in fact, part of the problem.) 

At his touch, the warm and steady weight of his hand, Peter's eyes drift closed. His breathing evens out, he stops frowning, his eyes stay closed-- until Juno takes his hand away. Peter’s determined to keep an eye on him. 

Or, at least, on his boots.

"So I came all the way out here, on my day off, to see you," he recaps, "and what was the first thing you said to me?"

The beat of silence tells Juno that Peter knows exactly what he’s talking about. "Well, I hardly think it was the  _ first  _ thing--" 

"Oh, that’s right, I remember," Juno’s happy to steamroll Peter and his impression is just exaggerated enough to hurt, "" _ Juno, you know I love you but you can't wear those filthy boots in the house _ ," is what you said to me."

"We  _ just _ had the floors--" 

"What makes you think  _ you  _ can say something like that?"

"-- I admit, I segued into it poorly, but Hieron said I could--" 

"Oh,  _ Hieron  _ said, did they?"

"-- ask to serv--" 

" _ Hieron _ , did you tell Nureyev he could be that damn rude when I came  _ all this way _ to see him?" 

Guileless, almost distracted, their answer drifts to where Peter is pinned to the floor, "I can't seem to recall." 

"They _ can't seem to recall _ ," he repeats for Peter, just in case he isn't listening. 

Peter is, beyond all shadow of doubt, listening to every word coming out of Juno’s mouth. He stammers, "I just wanted--"

"You just wanted?"

"-- Well, what I meant was--" 

"What you meant was?" 

Under any other circumstances the repetition, the mockery, would make him leave the room. Peter, intentionally, had requested not to have that option.   
  


* * *

Hieron, it is generally known, is a merciful god. 

And because they're a merciful god they set aside their goblet of plura juice (it stains the lips better than wine, a deep violet all over the inside of their mouth, and has the added benefit of being non-alcoholic for nights like this). The cut crystal rings a quiet hum sliding over the genuine wood of the side table. In a single languid movement, they lift themself from the sofa and rise to their feet. Their feet don't make a sound on the area rug or the expanse of floor that Juno has Peter laid out on. But the belled anklets they're wearing make the quietest music (lacey metalwork to match the wire-fine bangles stacked up their arms wrist to elbow, handmade in Orr and stolen from a diplomat, to hear Peter tell it). They’re a vision in gold.

The low light glints off the new silver in their hair; it shifts when they move like meteor-fall. They crouch over Peter, at Juno’s feet, to trace their cool knuckles over Peter’s exposed cheek. The drifting chiffon of their robe, heavy at the hem with embroidery, settles over his back and shoulders like a curtain. 

"I think you've confused him, Juno," they say, deliberately unfair, not for a second stopping their stroking Peter's cheek — they know if they keep at it he'll close his eyes and breathe a little easier no matter what comes out of their mouth. "If you wind him up any more... he's going to be completely useless." 

There's something really nasty caught in Juno's teeth, they can sense it, ( _ And that'd be from normal different  _ how _ ? _ ) but he knows better than to let it loose. Instead just raises his eyebrows at them, questioning their taste.

They smile. Beatific, unashamed, unapologetic. “You shouldn’t have to work so hard to get through to him; it’s your night off.”

A few more meaningful glances and offhand gestures pass between them. The gist: Peter asked for something very different than what he deserves or either one of them wants to give him and no one wants to make him cry tonight.

"Fine, you deal with him then." 

He sounds so much more dismissive than he looks. Hieron has to give him one more confirming nod before he’ll walk away, out onto the deck where Rothko and Duchamp and Magritte have been exiled until bedtime. He’ll be back. Once Hieron’s unwound the evening’s plaything a little.

* * *

It takes them a moment, balanced on the balls of their feet and ghosting their hand along the network of rope criss-crossing Peter's body, to figure out the best lines to use to pull him back up to his knees. Juno had made it all look as effortless as breathing. Hieron manages— with nowhere near the same amount of grace but no one is watching them now. No one but Peter who’s a little busy blinking away the disorientation of being upright to care whether they pulled a strange face or looked less than elegant. 

Hieron cards their fingers through his hair to push it out of his face. "Nothing's numb, is it?"

He shakes his head but when he starts to open his mouth and they press a finger over his lips, make a soft shushing sound. "Hush, that's enough. Are you thirsty?" 

It’s enough to give him whiplash, the sudden lack of expectation that he speak when spoken to. But he tries. Starts to shake his head (because saying  _ yes  _ would require them to stop touching him) but rethinks his decision (because saying  _ yes  _ to Hieron has, thus far, always proven to be something that pleases them). He nods.

They smile like he's given them something and kiss him and go away only for the dozen steps between Peter and the goblet on the side table and back. They hold it in place for him. 

"Go slow," they advise, their hands steady and sure and used to this kind of care.

And Peter tries, he does, but he'd forgotten himself and everything beyond Juno's relentless scrutiny— so he’s distracted and he breathes in when he should be swallowing. It's a helpless choking that only costs a few seconds' coughing and the last ounce of his pride. 

The juice that overspilled his lips nearly beats the embarrassed flush down to the ropes wrapping his shoulders. He doesn't even have the luxury of wiping his own face.

Without missing a beat Hieron sets the goblet aside, "It's alright, angel, I'm here," and they lick him clean. Lips, chin, collarbones. A slow progression and study with a special detour to worship the tendon that ran between his ear to sternum. They want to worry it in their teeth until it's the same shade of violet as their gums. 

"Does that feel better?" They tug at him until they can straddle him properly. Pull his head back with a gentle hand in his hair. Finger the new bruise they left at his throat with all its little burst blood vessels. 

It does but Peter still jerks like he thinks it'll do something. Not because he wants free but because he wants to  _ touch _ . Behind his back his hands clench. He's at their mercy; they get their fingers worked under the ropes at the tender places below his ribs to remind him of it. 

"I'm not going to ruin all Juno's hard work," Hieron chides. The blood rushing back to the skin, even for bare seconds as they run their fingers beneath taught lines, surely hurts. "He spent so much time weaving you into this, angel, it wouldn’t be fair." Their own word choice gives them pause, then a wave of adoration breaks over their face, "Look at you: living Brahmese lace."

Peter’s flush deepens. Under different circumstances, he would look away but he can’t, caught in their palms like this. So they kiss him— The Angel of Brahma, their angel-- until he goes slack in his ropes. Held up more by their hands wrapped tight in his knots than by the trembling muscles of his belly and back.

Hieron is merciful. In their way. 

They hold onto him and lean their weight forward to force Peter back, back, and  _ back _ . Past the point where his calves or the tops of his feet support him. 

For just a moment he's suspended. Staring, black-eyed, and barely daring to breathe. They could let him go. Or lose their grip. The inches between his upper back and the floor wouldn't hurt him-- not physically. But Hieron has their knees braced on the ground and their fingers tight in his harness and they lower him inch by careful inch. 

The new bootprint bruise high in the middle of his back makes him whimper but he has to let it take his weight if he wants to keep the feeling in his hands. Never mind the way his hands force him to arch his back so far his ribs stand out. 

Hieron only climbs off of him to do him a favor: their absence lets Peter exploit the little movement he has in his legs, tied bent as they are. He can ease the deep stretch across the tops of his thighs and just balance his toes against the floor. The sensation makes him moan; loud enough that outside the dogs start barking. He never thought in his life he would appreciate the simple pleasure flexing his feet so much.

The ropes wrapping his calves to his thighs are dug in-- no so deep as to impede circulation, Juno had checked several times over, but they'll leave lasting impressions. Hieron kisses the inside of his knee. Presses their fingers into the soft bulges of flesh and muscle in the gaps between ropes. Peter shudders and sighs. 

"Does that feel better, angel?" 

" _ Yes _ ." His timbre is soft. Lit with the greening gloam of laughter that won't quite come to fruition.

They love him so well like this.

"I think I can do you one better." 

"Not possible." 

"Are you a betting man?"

* * *

When Juno comes back inside-- once Nureyev's gone quiet and stayed quiet-- Hieron's laid out along their sofa in their glittering raiment, sipping their fancy fruit juice, looking bored. 

On the ground where they left him Peter's half twisted onto his side, limp and sated, like a boneless fish. He has his eyes fixed in the middle distance, in Hieron's vague direction, and he doesn't blink at the feeling of Juno's boots reverberating through the flooring on his way to Hieron’s side. Peter’s breathing is deep enough to draw the rope taught into his skin and that’s the only real clue Juno has that he isn’t dead.

Hieron glances where Juno’s looking and hums, dissatisfied, "He's no good anymore, Juno, I think you wore him out." They pout; their lips are nearly the same red as their eyes, kiss-swollen.

"Did I?" Juno snorts. "What a shame." 

"A  _ tragedy _ . What am I supposed to do with my evening now?" They fist a hand in the hem of his shirt and drag him onto the sofa, on top of them.

* * *

It’s a lovely kind of torture to lie on the cold, hard floor where Hieron left him and listen to Juno wring Peter’s favorite sounds from them. 

* * *

After, Peter can't parse the words Hieron and Juno are saying to him. He can't think farther than the half yard in front of his nose — beyond that everything is a blur. He's sure he's not done enough but Juno and Hieron have their hands on him and  _ that's  _ enough. The steady stinging lift and tug as they work knots loose with nimble fingers and, failing that, strong teeth. It’s enough to be still and be touched. To have Juno's arms around him, pulling him into his chest and stringing together words that are warm like sunlight. Warm like Hieron's mouth on his. The soft things they say, too, between kisses falling bright from their lips. 

* * *

It's slow work, getting Peter unstrung, because he's shaking and aching and they might have left him alone a little too long basking in their own afterglow. But going too quick will lead to cramps that none of them want. Juno's hands are sure as they press hard into the sorest, tightest places, convincing muscles that relaxing is in their best interest. It hurts but Peter doesn't offer up anything by way of complaint except the odd gasp or laugh. 

He remembered: Hieron warned him, months ago, that Peter was a giggler when he got comfortable.

Peter may be a giggler but he is also next to useless when they finally get him upright, unsteady on his feet. He starts to show shades of being stubborn about trying to walk anyway and  _ Hieron  _ looks like they're going to let him try it. Juno, being the only person in the room blessed with common sense, doesn't have time to argue (it's late and he's tired and kind of hungry). Instead, he wrestles Peter over his shoulders in a half-assed fireman's carry, and starts for the stairs. 

Hieron laughs so hard they fall over. 

* * *

Stunned by being bandied around like a sack of stolen goods, Peter's no closer to verbal when Juno drops him into Hieron's bed. Can’t blame him. But he’s bright-eyed and his reflexes have come back— he catches Juno's hands in his and kisses his knuckles with intent. Juno... lets him. Sits heavy on the edge of the bed while Peter loses himself in mapping the countless little scars and knicks across the back of his hand, an old cooking burn across his pale palm. Compulsively traces his finger along a tendon in Juno's wrist until the skin starts to sting.

It's simple, really, how he needs to touch and be touched.

Hieron finds them like that. Sat on the bed holding hands. Peter a little sharper than before and Juno soft around the edges. 

They don't say a thing when Juno asks what they're grinning at. They just pretend at being irritated, "I buy a bed this size and you both want to be on my side?" 

They'd retrieved their robe (it would need to be sent away for cleaning or for salvage) and let the dogs in and, most importantly, retrieved the true savior of exhausted lovers the galaxy over: wet wipes. 

Not every Friday night can be clandestine lovemaking and glamor. Sometimes shameless practicality is required. 

Hieron nearly makes it back out of bed to find more ointment to rub into the robe burn across Peter’s left thigh (they’d found it quite by accident). Nearly, because Peter snags an arm around their waist and hauls them back, half on top of him, stopping just shy of elbowing Juno in the face. 

“It can wait,” Peter tells them, muffled against the skin of their back. “Stay with us.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An important coda, because iimpavid's real kink is communication.

They unpack it three days later in the late morning sun making breakfast. Peter, they’ve learned, shouldn’t go near the oven but he’s a fantastic sous chef. So he dices veggies and meat while Juno mans the stove and Hieron sits at the island keeping court and sipping hot chocolate. The dogs have taken over the living room entirely. (In secret Peter is convinced the house was bought for the cyberhunds in mind.)

All Hieron really has to do is get them started. “The other night was magnificent; and I think, angel, you need to be more specific with what you ask for in the future.”

“No more spontaneity,” Juno agrees, blunter by far, “not if you want me mean. I don’t care how offensive you find my footwear.”

Peter arched an imperious eyebrow, “You’re telling me there are times when you’re not mean?”

“Only for good boys and dolls.” He winked at Hieron. 

Or rather: he blinked emphatically at Hieron and Peter couldn’t help himself. He burst into laughter— never coming close to cutting himself, he’s much too sure with knives, but the onion is making all of them uncomfortably weepy. For safety’s sake, they had to table the conversation until breakfast was done cooking. 

(Peter, like a maniac, pre-slices his omelet for himself and it's just a weird habit they all agree not to talk about. He does the same thing with steak. And pizza. Meticulous carving and savoring even when it’s just dumb breakfast food that didn’t even come out of the pan pretty. Juno simply doesn’t get it. Hieron finds it charming.)

When they’ve wound their way around to coffee and conversation again Peter picks up the thread, “I agree with you both; I’m not used to anything elaborate with Hieron, and by the sound of it, neither are you, Juno. But I think stricter adherence to the plan will... help. I need more consistency from the both of you,” and because this was where he got to make demands, “But I especially need you to let me not talk, Juno. I can go without being touched but all the talking is just... too much.”

“And how am I supposed to know if you’re not alright?”

Peter frowns. But he can see it. The abstract touching base that is wedging open opportunities left and right for him to say something’s wrong. And maybe more than Juno had intended to— Peter wasn’t the only one who went in nervous. 

“That doesn’t work for me, Juno. If I need to... request clemency I will. But if you want my undivided attention then I can’t be thinking about what I need to say next. Under the right circumstances, of course, I think being interrogated could be fun, but these... weren’t it. I got that wrong. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You said you don’t do this a lot? You’re still figuring out your own limits,” Juno says like it’s fine and it’s normal and not a big deal at all — and in the saying makes it so. 

“I do wonder if you aren’t mistaken, though, angel,” Hieron says, “you thrive so well on being touched.”

“That’s because you have me wrapped around your little finger, darling. I can do without. It adds a certain ... desperation to earn the privilege back and I like that. But there is one more thing,” he puts down his silverware to weigh his words, choosing the right ones as carefully as a jeweler might choose diamonds, “Juno, when I’m supposed to defer to you I need to be able to see you. Don’t walk away from me. Not— not like that. But when I can’t see whoever it is I’m meant to be,” he gestures, implying the messy whole of it, “For. When I can’t see you in a scene— and you’re not touching me— I feel abandoned. Cast off. And I ... don’t like feeling that way.”

“No wonder you liked getting tied up so much.”

Peter smiled, “Indeed.” It was all patient sensation, the push and pull of rope over skin, being moved where Juno needed him to be and having only to relax into each new bind. Even at its most utilitarian, there was an intimacy to being tied. 

“Do I take that to mean you didn’t enjoy the show Juno and I put on for you?”

Hieron’s several steps ahead of him already and Peter has to stop and think through their question. “No, not at all. That was different; I was supposed to be superfluous and it was... nice? To be unnecessary. But you didn’t give me my glasses back.  _ That _ was cruel.”

Juno snorted, “I’ll make sure we remember them next time.”

“If you could, I would be so grateful.” He boxes up his delight at Juno’s casual  _ next time _ for safekeeping. 

“How grateful we talkin’?”

“At least grateful enough to consult on your little predicament with the Uranian prime minister’s cuff links. For free.”

“ _ How _ do you know about that?”

“A thief has his ways, even a retired one,” Peter answers.

Only for Hieron to immediately ruin his coyness with, “Oh, Juno, I’m sorry, I must have said something.”

**Author's Note:**

> It’s important to renegotiate your scenes even if you’re in the middle of them if you need to. Except do it out loud instead of via mindreading; we can’t all be hybrids of an ancient alien race of empaths.


End file.
